


Faux Fur Allergies

by LittleLalaith



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Pet Shenanigans, Pets, Some bad language, brief mentions of previous trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27086854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLalaith/pseuds/LittleLalaith
Summary: Richie surprises Eddie with a furry little friend, but Eddie isn't sure.Thankfully, Richie's very good at looking after yappy little cuties, and he's good with dogs too ;p
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 26





	Faux Fur Allergies

"Promise me that you won't be mad."

It wasn't the most encouraging thing to hear when walking through the door after a long day at work. 

Eddie let out a sigh and braced himself for whatever bullshittery Richie had gotten himself into during the four hours since they'd spoken at lunch. It wasn't unheard of for Richie to cause, solve and then worsen four different problems in the space of an afternoon, but that had (thankfully) been a rare occurance. 

"Why would I be mad?" Eddie called back, hanging up his coat and placing his shoes neatly on the shoe rack. "You better not have watched Season 2 without me!"

"Eddie Spaghetti, what kind of person do you think I am?! I am a dutiful husband and would never watch a season without you!" Richie objected from somewhere in the living room. 

Rolling his eyes, Eddie made his way towards the room, but he couldn't quite shake the sense of unease that had started to curdle in his stomach. Richie always greeted him at the door, always - usually with a hug and a kiss, sometimes wearing a ridiculous outfit that was likely to make Eddie smile after a stressful day, or sometimes barely waiting for him to close the door behind him before he was being pressed against the wall or carried to the bedroom. Whichever one it was, Richie always greeted him... so something pretty significant must be going on if he was calling out from the living room. Eddie's anxiety flared, unbidden, and tried to convince him that the police were in the house or that Richie had been paralysed and was waiting for him to come and see his new wheelchair. 

No, stop. That was silly. Richie would have told him if it was something that significant. So then... why...

As he opened the door, Eddie was greeted with the sight of Richie splayed out on the couch with a toast-coloured Pomeranian sleeping on his chest. At the sound of the door opening, the dog snapped to attention and started barking loudly, throwing itself off of Richie's chest and hurtling at Eddie as fast as it's tiny legs would carry it. Impulsively, Eddie shrank back and half-closed the door to keep the damn thing from biting his ankles.

"Richie!" he shrieked, trying to hold the yapping puffball away with his foot. 

"You promised not to be mad," Richie grinned, getting up with a casual lack of urgency that irritated the mildly panicked Eddie. 

"I didn't promise shit! Why the fuck is there a dog in the house?"

Reaching down, Richie picked up the Pomeranian and allowed the animal to straight up lick his face; Eddie retched, grimacing as he watched the no-doubt butt scented tongue slobbering all over his husband. His chest felt tight. There was an animal in his nice, clean house. An animal with long fur and dirty paws, that licked its own asshole and rubbed said asshole all over the furniture, and would molt fur all over the damn house.... Also, he was pretty fucking sure that he was allergic to dog fur. A subtle wheeze worked its way into his breathing, proving the point.

"Rich..."

"Hey, take it easy, wheezy. Let me explain," Richie laughed, tucking the sentient pom-pom under his arm and encouraging Eddie to open the door. "Please?"

Eddie hesitated, but he recognised the sincerity in that last plea. This was Richie, his husband, the comedian, the joker... but it was also the man who hid behind humour to deflect and reduce conflict, the man who didn't know how to ask for things without being made to feel like he needed to earn them first. Whatever had happened today, there was likely a reasonably good explanation... Eddie could almost predict how the story would go - Richie was lonely when he was working from home and Eddie was at the office all day, he wanted a dog like he'd had when he was a young kid but he knew that Eddie would have a conniption and ban any pets before giving them a fair chance, so he went and got himself a dog from the shelter, with the intention of working on Eddie's resistance until he admitted he liked the dog, or promised to give the dog back if Eddie genuinely wasn't comfortable with it being in their home. He'd put money on it. 

"The house gets really quiet when you're at work and it creeps me out. And you know I work better when I can sound my jokes out to someone, even if that 'someone' is just a goldfish... so..." Richie started, and Eddie mentally cashed in his bet. "I know I should have asked, but I honestly didn't think I was going to buy a dog today. I was just going to visit the shelter and take a look, I swear."

Eddie raised a brow, dubious, but he took a seat on the sofa and gestured for his husband to sit beside him. As long as the dog was on Richie's lap, Eddie would probably be ok. Right? But if the fluff got onto his clothes and his asthma kicked up, or his allergies... his thoughts were cut short when Richie gripped his hand, seeming to notice that Eddie was getting caught up in his head and grounding him. 

"But you got there, saw how cute the walking hairball was and couldn't resist?" Eddie continued, his throat felt too tight. Had it gotten tighter since he sat next to the dog? He couldn't tell, but he wanted his inhaler either way. "Richie, where'd you put my ventilator?"

"Hey, no. You don't need it, remember?" Richie reminded him, gripping his hand firmly. 

Richie placed the dog carefully on the floor and turned his attention solely to Eddie, taking both of his hands and getting his husband to focus on his breathing. In. Out. The way they always did when Eddie was getting worked up over something. 

Eddie knew, on some level, that he didn't have asthma. It had been a way for his mom to control him, and he understood that. But a life-long habit died hard and Eddie still needed the inhaler to settle his nerves sometimes. It was an arrangement they had - Richie would keep the inhaler somewhere in the house and would go to get it if Eddie couldn't regulate his breathing during a panic attack or if he was getting increasingly stressed about a situation. But right now, while he was still able to talk and breath in a regular rhythm, it wasn't something he really needed. 

"I have allergies, Rich..." Eddie voiced, his throat feeling scratchy and his nerves not being helped by the tiny hell-spawn that was propping itself up against the cushion of the sofa and barking for attention. 

"Your eyes look fine, sweetheart. Why do you think you have an allergy?"

Richie was good at this. He was good at asking the right questions, good at combating the insidious voice of Sonia Kaspbrak that haunted Eddie's thoughts. It was one of the many reasons Eddie loved him. He was a joker, sure, but that was his superpower - he knew how to make the scary things less scary with a well timed joke. He could weaponise it, turn it on the evils of the world and come out laughing. Most importantly, he knew how to bring Eddie back to himself when he was getting overwhelmed.

"My throat feels scratchy, and I feel itchy," Eddie explained, refusing to acknowledge the dog, just wanting Richie to take it back so he could deep clean the house and forget this ever happened. 

"Eds, looks at me-"

"Don't call me Eds, you know I hate that," Eddie recited, the phrase falling from his tongue without venom or any real thought. It was part of their routine now. A catchphrase. 

"You're not allergic to dogs, or any kind of fur. I play with the neighbour's St Bernard all the time and you never have a reaction from the fur on my clothes. And more importantly, we have that very definitive doctor's note about your allergies."

Of course, the medical note that Eddie occasionally thought of as the 'paranoid breaker'. When they had first gotten together, as part of Eddie's recovery process, they had gone to a doctor for an allergy test and the doctor had compiled a list for Eddie to refer to. It was pretty conclusive - a mild allergy to tree nuts. That was it. Not fur, not dust, not even peanuts. Just 'tree' nuts, and even then the allergy wasn't bad enough to warrant an epipen. If anything, Richie had come out of that appointment with the more serious grapefruit allergy. Eddie sighed and focused on his breathing, forcing the fear out of his mind while Richie massaged his hands gently. 

"Feeling better?" Richie asked, smiling softly.

Eddie would never understand how Richie could be so patient with him. They had covered the topic of his allergies a thousand times, but Richie would happily go over it a thousand more times if it helped Eddie to stay calm when he was anxious. He felt lousy, and this time it wasn't a medical concern. 

His husband had been lonely and went to look at some pets, and probably had a reasonable explanation for why he had brought one home without asking, and Eddie had overreacted. 

"Yeah... I'm sorry," Eddie answered, leaning into Richie's side and allowing his husband to put an arm around his shoulders. 

"No need to be sorry, Spaghetti Man. It's not everyday that someone surprises their partner with a Pomeranian. To be honest, I was half expecting you to - alright, alright, Penny! That's enough. Can't you see I'm trying to have a conversation with my man?"

Eddie looked down and saw the Pomeranian tugging at Richie's trouser leg, her tiny growl sounding more like an electric toothbrush than a dangerous animal. "...Penny?"

Richie gave a sheepish smile and picked up the dog, setting her firmly in his lap so that Eddie could reach her if he wanted to try petting her, but not so close that Eddie felt obliged. Now that he was calmer, he could get a good look at the tiny creature and he had to admit that she was kind of cute. Still, the damn Pomeranian they had seen in the sewer that summer had also been cute until it turned into a mass of twisted, putrefied flesh... Eddie shivered and tried to push the thought away. Why the fuck had Richie chosen a Pomeranian of all things? And why did he name it Penny?!

"So, here's what happened," Richie started, using his free hand to ruffle the dogs fur as she settled to sleep on his lap. "I went to the shelter to ask whether they had any hypo-allergenic dogs, so that I could maybe talk you around to having an animal in the house. But while I was there, I got talking to the receptionist about what kind of house we had, whether we had a garden, whether I was looking for an active breed or something that would be happy chilling around the house. That kind of thing. And the whole time, I hear this yap coming from the kennels behind the main desk. So, I say: 'sounds like you've got yourself a real talker back there. You better watch he isn't staging a coup'."

Eddie sniffed a laugh, reaching across hesitantly to stroke the fingertips of his index and middle finger over her domed head. He expected her to snap at him, or to growl... little dogs were like that. At least, he'd heard they were like that. But she just burrowed her muzzle against Richie's thigh and stayed put while Eddie relaxed into the repetitive gesture. "Let me guess, it was Penny?"

"Winner, winner," Richie winked. "The receptionist told me that Penny had been in the shelter for like seven months, which is a long time for a young lapdog. Usually they get rehomed pretty quick, given that they're cute and don't need the same kind of care as a collie or whatever. But she barked at everyone that came to look at her and didn't let them get close. Apparently she took a chunk out of one of the handlers."

Drawing his hand back swiftly, Eddie glared at his husband. But Richie laughed and ruffled her fur, as though demonstrating that everything was fine... and it was. 

"I guess my 'impulse switch' triggered and I asked to take a look at her, just to see if I could make some kind of joke for my new show. You know, like 'I went to adopt a dog from the shelter and they only had this tiny, yappy thing there. So I apologised for my husband's behaviour and we left' kind of thing."

"Beep beep, asshole," Eddie chided, but he was laughing now. Despite everything, he was laughing. Which meant that Richie had won, but neither of them would admit it just yet. 

"Anyways, we get to the cage and this tiny little ball of fluff is just going wild on the other side of the cage door. She's kicking her little back feet out, barking and yowling, near enough bouncing off the floor every time she barked. But I crouched down and held my hand out... and she just stopped. Like I wasn't so scary now that I was smaller. I said something like 'See, she isn't so scary' and the receptionist explained that I was a rare case. Usually she didn't shut up, which was why they weren't going to be able to house her for much longer..."

"What do you mean? Like, where else where they going to-" Eddie started, but he realised what Richie was getting at and he gave a small 'oh' of understanding. "So, either she came home with you, or she wasn't going to get another chance."

"You got it... I'm sorry I didn't call you. I just... I knew that you'd freak out and I couldn't just walk out of there," Richie explained, his tone more grounded now. He focused on the dog, ruffling her fur and styling her fluff into a little mohawk. "Besides, I'm pretty good at getting shouty little things to calm down, so I knew I'd be able to get you to settle eventually."

"You're such an ass," Eddie shot back, but he felt a little better about this whole situation now that he was calmer and knew the whole story. Richie wouldn't have just done something like this to him for the fun of it. "Why did you have to call her Penny though?"

"I didn't. That was the name on her card," Richie shrugged, gently scooping the dog up and depositing her on Eddie's lap. "Hold the baby, I'll go and get you a drink."

"Richie, I..." Eddie protested, but Richie was already up and heading for the door. 

With another sigh, Eddie looked at the little bundle of fluff and ran a hand tentatively through her fur. An part of him expected the dog to change, to shapeshift into something horrific. Or worse, to simply look at him and speak with human words. Heya Eddie, ever wonder if you can get rabies from a dog bite? 

But the dog was just a dog, and Eddie's trauma was something that he was working to overcome. So, maybe having a little dog like this in the house would help him. Acclimate him to the sight of Pomeranians and change those bad associations to something positive. No longer a memory of a dark and disgusting place, full of danger and fear - but memories of a safe and happy home, with his husband and their pet. 

When Richie came back with a large glass of red wine for each of them, Eddie gave him the signature 'fine, have it your way' expression he'd developed over the past three years. 

"Penny can stay. But you're cleaning up her shit," he explained, putting his foot down on that one. 

"Done, no poop-duty for Mr Eddie Tozier."

"And you're hoovering the house when she molts."

"Alright, alright. Anything else?"

Eddie thought on it for a moment, then smirked. He reached for the wine glass and tinged it delicately against Richie's.

"And I love you. Even when you do crazy shit like adopting a rat with a perm."

Richie laughed and kissed Eddie's temple sweetly. "Love you too, Eddie."


End file.
